The fundamental operational principle of photovoltaic power generation is to illuminate the sunlight on the surface of solar cell. While using the power generation system, an important factor is on enhancing the efficiency of absorbing solar energy. The illumination angle of the sunlight changes periodically in a year and according to the geographical location. In addition, even in a day, the illumination angle changes according to the time. Thereby, tracking the location of illumination angle of the sun for acquiring the maximum illumination is a critical subject in a photovoltaic power generation system.
Currently, many types of practical solar tracking systems have been developed. The solar trackers formed by integrating these solar tracking systems with large-scale solar-cell panels are generally deployed in an array within a zone. By increasing the number of solar trackers in the array, the overall power generation can be increased. As described above, the angle of illumination of the sun differs according to the geographical location and time. In order to receive the illumination of the sunlight more effectively, the solar panels in solar trackers are disposed at an angle. Under such a circumstance, when solar trackers are deployed closely, the problem of inter-shadowing occurs frequently.
Furthermore, the problem of inter-shadowing results from shadowing of a portion of the sunlight on a solar tracker by adjacent solar trackers. Thereby, the solar panel of the solar tracker cannot receive the complete sunlight, making the realistic power generation lower than the rated value.
Accordingly, if the distance among solar trackers is increased, the influence of inter-shadowing could be reduced. Nonetheless, this means that a larger land is required for accommodating the same number of solar trackers. The solution brings the side effect. How to balance between power generation and land utility has become an issue to be considered. If a novel simulation method could be proposed so that the deployment can be simulated with convenience by the supplier in the technical field, assessment can be performed before disposing solar trackers in order to reduce the shadowing effect to a reasonable range, which is then beneficial to the development and promotion of photovoltaic power generation systems.